The protecting children from abusive games act

I am more afraid of unrestrained, unregulated companies in a free market and what they will do to make money than I am of government overreach.

As a LONG time gamer (My first console was Pong) and a parent, I'm fine with more information and regulation. Know when I learned about Roblox as an example? I mean I did what you said...I just did an internet search. Found out what I needed. Unfortunately I found out that I needed to go search in the first place because my kid cracked out on it and ran up charges on the Xbox.

Old School game development was this: Someone had a cool idea and turned it into a game.
New game development is this: We're gonna make a game to make money. Now what are some ideas?

When they throw operant conditioning at children they don't stand a chance. You can massacre their free will like a scythe through wheat. Parents put the lockdown on purchases, so they sneak them in through in-game purchases.

I have no problem with some additional legislation that better arms me as a parent. Me vs a megacorporation on my own is not a fair fight and my actual kid is at stake.

it's called self control AND watching what your children do on the internet.......

I am conflicted. I would love to see loot boxes banned, but that would be terrible for Planetside 2 and i really would hate subscription system that is in any way mandatory. In Star Wars Old Republic it technically is not mandatory but in practice it is, i would hate to see Planetside 2 get any kind of mandatory subscription system. But making game purchasable for X amount of money i would be perfectly fine with, i really like that, even if there are plenty of expansions/dlcs. DLC spam is not as bad as loot box spam imo, though it all depends on what exactly is done.

Its really problematic. There have been games where i have simply not had anything more to buy because there is nothing but the base game. In those instances developers lost money that i would have been willing to pay for them. But in many games micro transactions are terribly greedy and feel horrible.

Planetside 2 really should be conservative about this. They can't afford to switch to business model that hurts this game, they need to let others do the testing, see what works and then adopt what they think works best for this game.

Oh, it's not a fair fight, is it? I do apologize, I had no idea that discipline was such a problem in your household. My condolences. But I'm glad someone like you is here because some things do need to be said. I say these things, not out of anger or malice, but because they do need to be said to you, specifically.

I do not care about your child. I nothing them. Their woes and struggles, their victories, who they choose to love, what gender they wish to be, their political orientation, none of it. It's not my business to care, and it would be an infringement upon your own freedom for me to do so. However, time and again, the parents of this country see it as perfectly acceptable to attempt to make over 300 million people change their behavior, change what they consume, so that parents do not have to. I see that as incredibly selfish. I do not, have never, and will not care about your child and you are wrong to insist it upon me.

But perhaps this microtransaction issue is indicative of a far greater problem, that being the softness of parents. If your child has greater control over the finances than you do, perhaps this is a problem entirely of your own making. If they are running up charges on their phones, consider removing them. If they spend too much money on their xbox, do not allow it in your home. Perhaps it is not a problem with a child's mind, but YOURS. The likes of EA knows that you will continue to allow this because you like seeing your child happy, which itself is commendable, but it is your own good nature as a parent being taken advantage of, and I will resist you every step of the way if you want to reduce my own freedom for your sense of safety and security, for you would be deserving of neither.

that is precisely the problem here, you don't care if a large company takes advantage of children via gambling mechanics and psychological ploys by taking advantage of the fact that parents cannot monitor their children's online activity 100% of the time and then you try to claim it would be selfish of you to support a bill in principal meant to protect said children from reasonable danger.

nothing in the proposed bill will in any way infringe in your ability to gamble in games if you want to, the purpose of the bill is to protect children from being preyed upon by greedy companies more interested in making children cash cows then making decent games with reasonable profit models.

again as i said parents cannot watch their children online all the time, that's why things like parental controls were added to programs, the game companies had their chance to stop preying on children and to stop trying to make them into gambling addicts and they've wasted it.

the government has gotten involved because the game companies cannot reasonably regulate themselves in a manner that the public can accept, here's the thing these law changes don't just sort of happen, they happen because it's the final recourse for change after years and many complaints game companies have not cleaned up their act.


you seem to mistakenly think that caring for and protecting children is solely on the parents, it isn't i suggest you actually look at the body of the law, you will see there are many laws and regulations that exist to protect children, yet you act like the law has nothing to do with protecting children, it does.


children are not walking bags of money waiting for some disguised casino game to deprive them of their money.


no regulation at all is far more dangerous to society then reasonable regulation that exists to prevent people from being psychologically manipulated to become gambling addicts, especially those most vulnerable: children.

You know, I had written up a long satirical post which was pretty much just "A Modest Proposal," comparing this to food safety labels and ingredients lists, and how those were an abominable act of tyranny against the poor, poor corporations from a despotic populace that was too lazy to do the chemical testing or research to confirm they weren't eating rat meat - but I can tell that you're so deep down the hole that there's really no point.

I used to be a lolbert like you. But then I got enlightened. Darkly. And now in libertarianism I only see a shell of an ideology that vainly chases the dollar hoping to find in it human dignity, and instead finding another flavor of despotism. Power is power, and whether it is state or corporate is irrelevant. The two are fluid and interchangeable, because power structures do not begin and end at whatever is arbitrarily declared "sovereign." And it is arbitrary. Amazon has vastly more international clout than the majority of governments. It wields enormous amounts of power without an army. It can coerce states into doing its bidding by promising them contracts. It owns the cloud, and it rents out time on its servers. It is, in most respects, functionally indistinguishable from a sovereign.

What you're railing against is called "culture." Yes, social norms are very real, and sometimes communities get together and decide that certain behaviors are socially unacceptable. They then accord punishments to those behaviors, which are meted out as seen fit. What is acceptable in one culture may not be acceptable in another. Societies preserve themselves by having these social norms and this magical thing called "human empathy" where they actually do care about one another's outcomes. The world does not begin and end with the exchange of currency, nor should it. Humans have not evolved to live as socially isolated creatures in an atomized society, we evolved to live in a tribe, a community. Our attempt to live in a socially isolated and atomized society right now is destroying us. All forms of escapism - lethal, illegal, and otherwise - are on the rise, as people check out in one way or another. What you're selling is a form of ideological poison, and I won't deny that it may be honey to some people - however, the average human mind isn't built to stomach the absence of community that you long for.

If corporations are people, then they have communal responsibilities like the rest of us (and even if they weren't people, they still have communal responsibilities). And I'll say it: preying on the minds of people who can't say no due to a condition with a genetic basis and an increasingly understood neurological component (addiction), as well as the minds of ignorant children who are vulnerable to operant conditioning - that is nothing less than contemptible. It isn't even a respectable transaction according to the majority of libertarian thinkers - neither an addict nor a child can offer well informed consent that is free of coercion.

Lootboxes are a bad deal for the consumer. That's just objective math. You will statistically have to buy more lootboxes, paying more, in order to get whatever you want. If selling single cosmetics was as profitable, then you'd see it more regularly. You don't. Even with all today's tools for monitoring children, with both parents often having jobs and barely making ends meet, there's plenty of time for little timmy to lift dad's credit card. Little timmy and the addicted adults are the reason why a bad deal which no rational consumer would choose continues to persist. So if you want to defend thievery while calling it freedom (all property exchanged without well informed consent and free of coercion is theft), or if you think that exploiting the neurologically impaired or underdeveloped is somehow defensible, then call me up next time you get brain damage and let me see what I can sell you.

This is, by every objective metric, a harmful business practice. Not even the vast majority of libertarian frameworks can defend this. Do you realize how hilariously hyperbolic it is when you say

in this context? This great threat to freedom. This threat where they don't even intend to ban the practice period, but to write a law stating that gambling mechanics belong only in games for adults - which is in line with existing laws regarding gambling. I mean, do you think casinos should start letting kids in now? Is this really the hill you want to die on? They're going to change a label, and you're going to resist this every step of the way? You're going to fight tooth and nail to resist the great threat created by demanding these companies put a label on the box indicating that they partake in predatory practices? Would you be saying the same thing about standardized ingredients lists? Nutritional information? Cigarette warnings? All this is really going to do is make every F2P game AO - they're not going to turn off their magic printing press. AO will no longer be stigmatized, both by consumers and by what I'm sure will be some very extensive, expensive advertising campaigns about how not all AO games are the same. And at the very least, consumers will be better informed, armed with the knowledge that whatever they're purchasing contains the monetization equivalent of cancer.

You're right. I don't. Why should I? Just because people choose to have children, I am suddenly indebted to them? Under this bill, concerning pay to win microtransactions, I would not be able to spend some of my own wages to unlock the rest of PS2 constructibles instead of cert grinding them out. Yes, it does say that. I would suggest you read the wording of this bill. As for myself... I ask absolutely nothing of others, save for two things: don't tell me what to do, and do not steal my stuff. I see absolutely nothing selfish about that. It is not my responsibility, nor my business.

And I would reiterate to you that if that is all they planned on doing, that'd be great. No more awful loot boxes, less grind in games, EA's corporate staff is promoted to janitor, etc. But if you give a beggar a million dollars, he'll buy bread and then wonder what else is for sale. The government will never be done trying to fix you if you give them a precedent.

Not my business, nor is it my problem.

It should be. I imagine the second that parents realized they could shirk their duties and make excuses for the behavior of their children on pinball machines, rock and roll, smart phones, video games, or...well, pick your generation's excuse, that the quality of that parenting decreased significantly.

Look as much as I adore a good straw manning and ad hominem fallacy, that is WAAAAAAAY too much of a poorly edited wall of text to go through line by line. So, maybe just take a breath, go get a drink of water, and try to rephrase yourself, more succinctly, and not try to attack me as a person. Instead, attack my arguments.

What in God's name is a Lolbert anyway???????

I'd presume you meant to quote me? Insulting my editing when you have objectively more grammatical errors is cute. I addressed your arguments, but I didn't quote them, because I trusted you could figure out what I was replying to. You've posted plenty of text walls. If you don't want discourse, don't post a request for it - your inability to deal with a high volume of carefully thought out words is not my business, and not my problem. I also wouldn't advise haphazardly tossing out entry level fallacies in response to actual biting critique - it won't advance your position. I love debate and a good argument, so don't worry - I have water at my desk, and I don't need to take a breath. Lots of words doesn't mean somebody is incensed. It means they're engaged. I enjoy this.

The last post was snide, and this one is snide to a much greater degree. But that isn't ad hominemem - impugning the character of one's debate partner instead of addressing their argument. Instead I addressed and derided your arguments, statements, or implied positions. I haven't attacked your character even once. Ad hominemem would be scrutinizing your choice of avatar and making derisive remarks about your implied affection for playing as a MAX. But I wouldn't do that.

As for strawmen - what strawmen? I articulated your position. I even quoted you. I then expounded on your position, and made logical comparisons. I'll even reiterate it.

You intend to fight this egregious infringement upon your rights as a consumer - the legal demand that games with gambling mechanics be labeled as for adult consumption only, and marked as containing these exploitative monetization models. That is all the law entails. A label of disclosure and the barring of children from purchasing it (and I will go on to prove that). All I did was lay out how ridiculous your proclamation of uncompromising resistance was. I did so by comparing it with the loads of similar protections that already exist and have served a useful purpose, all without any overreach. The classic argument against regulation is the slippery slope - which is true in some cases, and not so in others. Warning labels are not a form of regulation that consistently leads to infringement of any rights. It only benefits the consumer.

I did all this after laying out one of the problems with modern libertarian ideology - the cloth you're very clearly cut from. And frankly, I don't like doing this here - this is hardly a forum for politics - but this is discussion of a law that would impact planetside if passed, and could impact Planetside 2 if DBG cared about getting a reduced rating. So, given that we're talking about the utility of a law, epistemic interrogation is to be expected.

Since you like your points served piecemeal, I'll be accommodating and spoonfeed you.

Yes. Human society continues to exist for their efforts, and you will be benefiting from the work those children do when you age, because presumably you will continue to engage with the economy like everyone else. You don't need to get a check from social security to benefit from their existence. So yes, you do owe them. Being a parent isn't easy, and it is in your best interest to ensure that their children grow into functional adults. The only way you could void this debt is by going completely off the grid before those children come of age.

You know, I'd recommend you actually earn the right to be condescending before attempting it. Read Section 1 of the bill (again) and try to do it more closely this time. I'll even quote the important bits for you. Emphasis mine.

(a) PROHIBITION OF PAY-TO-WIN MICROTRANSACTIONS AND SALES OF LOOTBOXES IN MINOR-ORIENTED GAMES

(b) PROHIBITION ON PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION OF VIDEOGAMES CONTAINING PAY-TO-WIN MICROTRANSACTIONS OR PURCHASING LOOTBOXES WHERE THE PUBLISHER OR DISTRIBUTOR HAS CONSTRUCTIVEKNOWLEDGE THAT ANY USERS ARE UNDER AGE 18.

Did you catch it that time? Was the bold, underlined, and bright red text enough? The rest of it was clarification to those two points. Games with gambling and p2w mechanics can continue to be sold - to adults. So unless you're under 18, you're fine bud. You can still spend your hard earned wages skipping the grind. And you might say that the last clause is effectively a catch-all, so no games can have lootboxes - but where's your faith in the free market? We live in the era of big data. They'll find a way to verify identities effectively. Developing a system for that would be much cheaper than giving up this money printer, and there are a variety of social media services already in a position to sell their verification abilities to game companies. The biggest whales are adults with incomes, so this would put a dent in the profits, but the law should not render it unprofitable.

You're asking the rest of society not to intervene on behalf those who are being stolen from, and your only justification is a slippery slope argument that is wholly unsubstantiated in this context. Show me five instances where warning labels and age restrictions led to severe government overreach. There are people actively being harmed, and you're claiming you will resist "every step of the way" for even the smallest precautions taken on behalf of them because it might maybe inconvenience you - let's not mince words here, that's completely selfish. And it will remain so until you can substantiate your slippery slope argument in this legal context. Until then, it's just a slippery slope fallacy. Because sometimes things do go that way, and other times they don't.

You are not an island. We live in a society. :^) If you would like to be an island, some folks are trying to create a seasteading movement out on the deep blue. Start saving.

Concerning ad hominemen, lolbert was the closest instance of it in that post. It's a pejorative for libertarian, specifically the variety that expects the free market will magically resolve every problem and that the government is always bad - the variety that verges on being anarcho-capitalist. The "lol" comes from the laughter of every other portion of the political spectrum. Laughter at the idea that the market is the long sought grand panacea to all human ills, and the simplistic reductionist tendencies of the ideology in general.

in other words you are more concerned about convenience in you unlocking things in one game and you are perfectly fine with other people being psychologically manipulated (even children) to create gambling addicts so the top 1% can make easy money to keep that functionality.

except this bill didn't come to be purely because of politicans, it's entirely due to the public's disapproval of socially unacceptable behavior, i see no evidence of government overreach on this issue, you keep throwing that around like it's an actual concern at this point, it's not. people are sick and tired of scummy business practices aiming gambling at children deliberately.

it's clear to me you don't really have a good grasp of the reality of parenting, parents are not 'shirking their duty' games are not accurately labeled to say 'contains RMT mechanics' so parent's can't make an informed choice and reality will not let them monitor their children's activity 100% of the time.

you seem to think parents are superhumans that can ignore the reality of work, attention and management ability.
parents have to cloth and feed said children, manage the household chores and tasks and work on top of any other things that are needed, they also have to manage their own needs at the same time.

i have in no way shape or form attacked you, you merely keep ignoring facts, reiterating 'i don't care about children' 'government overreach' (despite the fact this is purely public action bearing fruit).

nothing in the bill will prevent you from gambling if you wish, you can still gamble in adult games made for adults and not children's games with gambling targeted at children.

*sigh* Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of this conversation. I'm going to sum up my objections in 3 points, and then move on to doing other things with my day.

1) The Government is, BY FAR, the worst possible organization that makes the worst possible decisions when it comes to this kind of thing. Every time they try to grab power, they do so "for the children", and it's people like you that make that possible. You fall for the same scheme over and over and over and over. You want to trust the care to your children to an organization that can't even build a singular wall without a massive partisan circus? Or can't figure out what the terminology of what a simple amendment means in reality? You want your kids taken care of by that? Okay, you do you, but I hope you all have a phone so when it all goes pear shaped, I can say that I frikkin called it.

2) I have repeatedly stated that I wouldn't mind it if loot boxes were gone. I worry that that is not all that will be done. If you can't understand how this sets a precedent, then you really are too dumb for me to talk to anymore. Hence why this is my last post here.

3) You two are more concerned with the sheer OUTRAGE of me saying that I don't want to babysit your children or impact their lives in any way that you have completely lost track of the thing I was worried about in the first place. The government is not the organization that should be doing this, as I stated in point 1. They attempt to make a solution that works for everyone (considering themselves first and foremost, I imagine) and in the end, it usually works for no one. Ask them how prohibition went sometime, or heck, ask the EU about memes and Count Dankula more currently. But no, I'M the enemy because I said I don't care about your kids and I take exception to your attempts to tell me what to do. Honestly, the idea of you two breeding scares me to death because you are perfectly content to let the powers that be lead you off a cliff.

LOL. You're not a parent.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Because you have no legitimate response, and no framework for reaching one, so rather than actually trying to use your brain you'll lazily avoid any meaningful intellectual confrontation. I know this song and dance. It's so much easier to just think you're right all the time instead of making the effort to be right as often as possible, isn't it?

1. It is imperfect. So is the free market. I'll take conscious human guidance of society over random garbage selected for by the learning algorithms which guide modern trends in advertising and content creation. I look forward to one day hearing your arguments for admitting children into casinos and the abolishment of cigarette warnings - which are the literal equivalents of what you are presently admonishing. It is literally the same thing, but with virtual goods. What terrible human rights abuses have been born of those? None.

2. Now it's time for some juicy ad hom - I don't really expect self awareness from MAX players, so I'm not surprised you're stupid enough to call us dumb even after you've proven consistently incapable of articulating meaningful arguments or disagreement beyond "it's going to happen this way because it always does." Which I shouldn't have to tell you: that's not an argument. The slippery slope argument is sometimes true. It is not always true - and assuming it is true is fallacious. The onus is on you to demonstrate the truth of it. You haven't. Instead you derided everyone who disagreed with you and said the fault laid entirely with them, and not the precious, infallible free market. You know just enough about a philosophy to articulate the common arguments it proposes, with zero of the understanding to respond to critique with anything other than mindless repetition. You're not as clever as you think.

3. No, we did not lose track of that. I said repeatedly that it was of no concern, offered examples of similar regulations that were put in place and have stayed largely the same since their implementation. You never offered any counter examples or even acknowledged what I said, which is about what I expected from a pseud. Given that you think the ESRB - a harmless organization which is run by the games industry itself - should be abolished, I can only imagine you want a totally unregulated market. Heavens forbid there be a white sticker explaining the game's content in it. You've finally offered a shoddy counterexample by bringing up the EU's Article 13 - which pertains to a completely different type of law and was pushed for - you guessed it - massive copyright holding corporations. So let's not pretend it was only the big bad government blowing the house of memes down. Like I said, power is power, and power structures transcend sovereignty. Besides the areas of law being completely different, the states are different as well. The EU is an anti-democratic institution managed by unelected bureaucrats, which is not the case with the United States, where - believe it or not - public opinion does make a difference. So your general argument of "all regulation is bad because this instance of it is bad" is, frankly, pretty dumb. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll develop the critical thinking skills one day - maybe when you graduate from the training wheels class. And yes, you responded to disagreement with derision, and you got it in return. Don't dish out what you can't eat. And don't be surprised when people call you out for attempting to disguise your lack of human empathy as a virtue.

I'm sure the cliff we'll be led off of is a very tall mountain, and definitely not the mole hill it actually is.

You have to be this tall, to ride this ride.

Question to people who say parents should control what their children do: how? I did stuff behind back of my parents and i have no idea how they could have controlled it without being terrible parents. There is only so much parents can do, sometimes children will do something they are not allowed to do, it is perfectly natural. Ofc don't let children do anything they want, but try to raise them to make their own decisions. It reduces chances that children will do something stupid, and often when they do something stupid, it is accident which is natural part of life. Not always ofc, children are still children. But its better to accept that sometimes something will happen, and just try to prepare your children as well as you can so in situations where they have to make their own decision, they can do it. Encourage critical thinking. This makes it more likely that your children won't do something stupid, but if they do because they are humans and children, you are there to help them through it and life continues.


But loot boxes are not only problem for children. Many adults have problems with gambling as well. Its easy to say that people should not play games or buy micro transaction if they have problems controlling themselves. But thing is, humans are gullible and corruptible. Gambling is regulated in most places for a good reason: humans do what humans do and they get into problems. Regulating gambling is preventive measure that saves money. In extreme situation, people can gamble so much that their family gets into serious financial issues. That often leads to alcoholism or just otherwise unhealthier life style. And that often spreads. Children who live in abusive homes often suffer and can often become abusers or alcoholics themselves, which can cause problems for other people in the nation.

This is ofc extreme example. But banning predatory business models often is great for consumers even when they don't have any problems and can control their purchases. Predatory business model often leads to inferior games, as for example developers make you do more tedious, repetitive, boring grindy missions to get experience because they want to encourage people to buy experience boosts.

And this is again problem for Planetside 2, because i think experience boosts in Planetside 2 are just fine. Planetside 2 does not center around gaining experience, experience just allows you to unlock more things in the game. But as infantry at least you remain competitive without having spent single cert (aka experience) into anything. Planetside 2 is not MMORPG where you need to constantly grind for more gear to remain competitive or even be able to continue the game.


Fact is that internet and video games are still very new to the law. Many laws have existed for thousands of years, and they have had serious flaws so it has taken really long time to improve them, and still today many laws have flaws. Video game business models on other hand are comparatively something completely new. It will take decades of evolution for this entire industry - even today many people still consider video games to be toys and not on same level as movies.
So we don't yet know what the best solution(s) is (are) long term. We don't yet even know what best business model is for creating best product. For a time it looked like free to play was the future, but now we are again going back to old trend of base game + expansions. Even cosmetics are often available with in-game money.

Can i just point out that it depends what exactly is done and it also depends on the nation. In Finland i support government regulation, it is great. If i would live country where my government is corrupt (financially or morally or both), i would think the opposite. Question for me is not if goverment should regulate things, but how and how much/little.

Trouble is, your talking to Americans. the single most paranoid, anti gov religious people in western world. They are the Polar opasite of the Religious types in Middle east lol, so if something like this silly act comes about they see it as a personal attack on their freedom.

no, gamesmedia like this DOES NEED regulation ..

the recent example of lootboxes and profitdriven state of mind of the companies behind such actions show how they don´t give a care to regulate themselves ...
as mentioned before they will go any way to milk their consumers ... to the point were some of them don´t even call us customers anymore ..
not to mention how the general industry threads it´s own employes these days ..

people say "oh but it generates SO MANY jobs" and in the news you hear "unemployement has decreased by so and so much perscent" ... but what they don´t tell you is weither or not people break even with one job .. some have to do 2 or even 3 jobs to get enough money ... or how much afterhours people have to do on their jobs with no propper compensation ..

so no we need a LOT more bills that help both customers and employes to be not f cked over by companies with this heavy profitdriven mindset ..

you jerks actually made me post on ps2 forums for this.

The main problem with the bill is that it defines minor oriented games as anything below an M rating. There are plenty of games that are suitable for all ages that have micro transactions that appear to be aimed at young people. Dragalia lost and fire emblem heroes are great examples of this on mobile platforms and there are plenty of games on pc that i could mention. those games have a problem where the graphical aspects of the games are not covered in gore and do not contain foul language so they get a fair rating. but that rating is not based on gameplay aspects. Strategy games will fall into a grey area because they are enjoyed by adults but are pretty safe for kids to play. Parents don't seem to have a problem with kids playing GTA now a days so this isn't going to be effective as law.

you would be more likely to see a game like pokemon or fire emblem in the kids or all ages section with an M rating on it because of a a few micro transactions. needless to say this isn't going to work at all.

planetside 2 falls into an interesting area because i believe it is rated T, so apparently its a minor oriented game. when you stop laughing at the thought of that keep reading.

membership doesn't really give you a substantial bonus in terms of power. nanites are the only bonus other than the robot faction but i don't think thats really as much of an issue as much as buying weapons for real money is. you can get pretty much everything with certs, but there are reskins like heatwave weapons that are exactly the same in function but are pretty with a real world pricetag.

at the end of the day, the slot machines branded as video games are getting old and everyone hates them. if you want to see change that doesn't lead to gamers being even more oppressed then call your damn senators. I'll be doing that later because i know those boomers don't know **** about vidya games.

also, the esrb isn't federal mandate, stores like steam, GOG, gamestop, playstation/xbox/nintendo all require games to be rated. that does not mean you have to be rated. the bill as it stands will accomplish nothing but force store to change policies, derail the rating system, and fine random indie developers just trying to make a buck..

LOL, of course you care about my kid, you just don't know it.

He'll either rob your house some day, or cure your cancer. I'll do my best to make sure it's the latter and not the former. If you don't want to arm me with *anything* at all so be it. Cuz guess what? *I* don't care about YOU.

Enjoy your freedom and the consequences that come with it.

And also... I know this stings and you've heard it so much you're probably sick of it.

If you don't have a kid, don't think you know a thing about raising them. You really do NOT know !#$.

Yeah, yeah, you think there are things that are universal and there are. Parents know those too. Such things are already accounted for when I state this. You really truly do not know. If you did, you simply would not say the things you say. Oh I know this grates to hear. I'm sorry. Is what it is. It probably sounds every bit a cop out in the argument but it's not.

/shrug